East Downtown Houston (EaDo) is a district in Houston, Texas, United States. The East Downtown Management District (EDMD), headquartered at 2612 McKinney Street, manages the area.^[1] The community is located east of Downtown Houston and north of Interstate 45 (Gulf Freeway).^[2] It is between the George R. Brown Convention Center and the East End district.^[3] dy The Old Chinatown, an area within East Downtown bounded by U.S. Route 59, Preston Street, St. Joseph Parkway, and Dowling Street, is the older of the two Houston Chinatowns.^[2][4] The East Downtown Chinatown is not the same as the Chinatown in southwestern Houston.^[5]

History[link]

The former Luckie School

In the 1930s many Cantonese immigrants moved to the former Houston Chinatown, then a part of the Third Ward area, from Downtown Houston in an effort to find more inexpensive land. The Cantonese opened several businesses, including grocery stores and restaurants, and held Chinese New Year celebrations. Immigrants from other East Asian countries, including Vietnam, moved into the Chinatown. By the 1990s, many of the East Asian businesses left and had relocated to the current Chinatown in southwest Houston.^[3]

In a November 28, 2002 Houston Press article John Nova Lomax described what is now known as East Downtown Houston as "a silent, godforsaken stretch of no-man's-land that's not really the Warehouse District, nor the Third Ward, nor the East End."^[6] Lomax said that he used "that bulky definition" since that by 2000, the name "Chinatown," still used in the 1980s and 1990s, "was no longer apt." The area received its current name in the late 2000s.^[7]

In 2008 the management district and its namethedistrict.com website asked for suggestions for a new name for the district.^[3][8] Suggestions included "the Warehouse District," referring to the abandoned warehouses, and "Saint E," after St. Emmanuel Street, a key street and the location of several bars and clubs. The district selected "EaDo," short for "East Downtown," one of the three most popular suggestions for the name of the district.^[3]

During the same year Dan Nip, a developer and East Downtown Management District board member, encouraged people to invest in the Old Chinatown area in East Downtown; if a person invests $500,000 United States dollars in the Old Chinatown and subsequently creates two jobs for ten years, he or she would become eligible for a EB-5 visa.^[4][9] By late 2009 the East Downtown authority began re-branding the district to reflect its current name.^[3] By 2010 a community of artists began to form in EaDo.^[10]

Venues[link]

East Facade along Dowling Street

BBVA Compass Stadium is home for the Houston Dynamo and the Texas Southern University football team, which is on a tract of land bordered by Texas, Walker, Dowling and Hutchins in East Downtown. BBVA Compass is the first soccer-specific stadium in MLS to be located in a Downtown area. The stadium seats 22,039 and besides hosting soccer and football events will hold other events such as concerts and boxing matches.

Cityscape[link]

Helen Anders of the Austin American-Statesman said that EaDo "looks like an art installation, with the steamshiplike George R. Brown Convention Center as a backdrop, skyscrapers lurking in the background and angular new condos set against low-slung warehouses, some of them still in use for industrial storage."^[10]

Culture[link]

The Texas Guandi Temple (Traditional Chinese: 德州關帝廟, Simplified Chinese: 德州关帝庙, Pinyin: Dézhōu Guāndì Miào) is located in East Downtown.^[11] The temple was established in 1999 by a Vietnamese couple. They decided to build a temple to Guan Yu (Guandi) after surviving an aggravated robbery; they believed that Guandi saved their lives during the incident.^[12]

Homeless population[link]

The district has long been known for a relatively large homeless population (comparable to Skid Row, Los Angeles but on a far smaller scale). Many of the homeless in the Houston area congregate in East Downtown because of the presence of nearby agencies that provide services (which predate the current redevelopment efforts) and several groups that independently provide food, clothing, toiletries and other items on nearby vacant lots. Nearly all Houston non-profit and faith-based agencies which provide services to the homeless, including food and shelter, are located within Downtown and Midtown. A major shelter for women and children operated by Star of Hope, a faith-based agency, is located on Dowling Street, between Texas & Franklin; the agency operates a men's facility nearby on the west side of US 59, north of Minute Maid Park.

There has been some tension in recent years between developers who want to revitalize the East Downtown district with commercial and residential projects, and the homeless (and homeless service providers). Some have called for the city of Houston to restrict public sleeping on sidewalks and to regulate charitable serving of food.^[13][14] It remains to be seen whether or not current services to the homeless can continue in East Downtown in the face of ongoing revitalization and redevelopment efforts.

Government and infrastructure[link]

Houston City Council District I covers East Downtown.^[15]

Station 10, opened in 1894 in what is now East Downtown;^[2][16] the station relocated to its current location in what is now the new Chinatown and Greater Sharpstown in 1985.^[16][5][17]

Metro is currently building a new MetroRail line called East End/Green Line which is slated for completion in 2016.

Education[link]

Dodson Elementary School

The district is within the Houston Independent School District. East Downtown is within Trustee District VIII, represented by Diana Dávila as of 2009.^[2][18]

Dodson Elementary School, in East Downtown,^[19] and Rusk Elementary School, outside of East Downtown,^[20] serve separate sections of East Downtown for elementary school. In 1995 Rusk had a student mobility rate of almost 100% because it had a very large homeless population.^[21]

For grades 6 through 8 Jackson Middle School serves East Downtown,^[22] Austin High School and Wheatley High School serve separate sections of East Downtown.^[23][24] Rusk has a science and technology magnet program for middle school students.^[25]

Charles W. Luckie Elementary School, located at 1104 Palmer in what is now East Downtown, was a school for African-Americans.^[26] It closed circa 1943.^[27]

Prior to its closure, Anson Jones Elementary School, outside of East Downtown, served sections of East Downtown.^[28] The school, opened in 1892 with its latest campus constructed in 1966, closed in Summer 2006.^[27][29] E.O. Smith Education Center closed after the 2010-2011 school year; the portion of East Downtown was rezoned to Jackson.^[22][30]

See also[link]

Houston portal

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: East Downtown, Houston

• East Downtown Houston
• Sarnoff, Nancy. "'EaDo' pioneers hope rail, Dynamo stadium put area on track." Houston Chronicle. Saturday May 19, 2012.

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